Repentance

In the King James version the well-known chapter, 1 Corinthians 13, starts with the words: "Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels, and have not charity ... ". The newer English translations use "love" instead of "charity". Charity has changed its meaning in the English language.

Similarly, many evangelists use the word "repent" to mean something different from what Jesus meant when he said: "Repent and believe the good news" (Mark 1:15). Some preachers are not satisfied with a person's repentance if it is not accompanied by tears and deep sorrow. The majority of dictionaries have the same interpretation (https://www.google.com/search?q=repent+meaning). Of course, there are occasions in the Bible when repentance was preceded by people being "cut to the heart". This was the case when Peter told the Jews who had gathered on the day of Pentecost that they had just killed their Messiah (Acts 2:37).

The Greek word in Matthew 4:17 and Mark 1:15 is "metanoio". It literally means to change one's mind. The fact that Jesus combines repentance with the phrase "the kingdom of heaven has come near" indicates that he was referring to himself as the king. The same deduction can be made from Luke 17:20-22 where Jesus identified the kingdom with "the days of the Son of man". The messianic kingdom they were expecting was near, right in their midst. The Jews needed a "paradigm shift" in their thinking. Although Jesus did not say so, he implied that the Roman Empire would be dealt with later. First the prospective citizens of the kingdom of heaven had to get their hearts in the right place. They needed to accept its king and swear allegiance to him.

For a more complete explanation of "repentance" see https://cmmorrison.wordpress.com/2010/07/23/repentance/

Truth?

 Imagine a boy, who is scared of his parents, being asked to look after his younger brother for the morning while they go out. He gets told that if he does well they would reward him with some ice cream from the fridge. When the parents get home they find the ice cream tub is empty.

They ask the boy who ate it, he or his brother. If he says he did, they may take money off his allowance. If he says it was his brother, they could ground him for a period. He doesn't know which is worse, so he says: "I don't know".

This is about how the chief priests and the elders answered Jesus' question about the baptism of John. If they said John had a mandate from heaven, Jesus would ask them why they didn't get baptised. If they said it was of human origin they could get themselves stoned because the people were persuaded that John the Baptist was a prophet. So they answered: "We don't know" (Luke 20:3-5).

In neither of these cases were those who answered interested in telling the truth. To them the truth was irrelevant. They may not even have believed there was such a thing as truth. Jesus told Pilate that everyone who cares for truth, who is interested in the truth, recognises his voice. Pilate's answer "What is truth" indicates that he probably did not have any feeling for the truth either (John 18:37-38).

In today's news media the same attitude to truth prevails. Each news channel has an agenda which is prescribed by the preference of the owners and its popularity among the viewers/listeners. The motive is profit, not truth. Any news reflecting negatively on the broadcaster's agenda is ignored. It's like they're saying: "We didn't know".